Epistemological motivations for anti-realism

Anti-realism is often claimed to be preferable to realism on epistemological grounds: while realists have difficulty explaining how we can ever know claims if we are realists about it, anti-realism faces no analogous problem. This paper focuses on anti-realism about normativity to investigate this alleged advantage to anti-realism in detail. I set up a framework in which a version of anti-realism explains a type of modal reliability that appears to be epistemologically promising, and plausibly explains the appearance of an epistemological advantage to realism. But, I argue, this appearance is illusory, and on closer investigation the anti-realist view does not succeed in explaining the presence of familiar epistemological properties for normative belief like knowledge or the absence of defeat. My conclusion on the basis of this framework is that there is a tension in the anti-realist view between the urge to idealize the conditions in which normative beliefs ground normative facts, and a robust kind of reliability that normative belief can have if the anti-realist resists these idealizations.     

Skin conductance responses as predictor of emotional responses to stressful life events

Preferential preattentive processing towards threat has been proposed to play a casual role in the development of anxiety, mainly because it reliably predicts emotional responding to stressful events. However, in the investigation of the predictive value of preferential preattentive processing towards threat, the emotional Stroop task has exclusively being used. This study was designed to prospectively investigate the predictive value of skin conductance reactivity in response to masked (i.e., preattentively perceived) threatening pictures on emotional responding following stressful life events. To collect skin conductance data, the picture perception task was administered to 136 police recruits due to enroll into active duty within 2-4 months. To assess psychological distress following emotionally stressful life events, the impact of event scale were administered approximately 24 months later. Controlling for trait anxiety, analyses indicated that enhanced skin conductance reactivity in response to masked threatening pictures (relative to neutrals) was a strong predictor of emotional responding to stressful life events. This finding support preferential preattentive processing towards threat as a relatively independent factor predictive of emotional responding.     

Treating Prepartum Depression to Improve Infant Developmental Outcomes: A Study of Diabetes in Pregnancy

Whether and how the co-occurrence of depression and diabetes in pregnancy may worsen infant development has not been reported. Pregnant women with diabetes and with (n?=?34) or without (n?=?34) major depressive disorder (MDD) were followed during pregnancy and 6-months postpartum. The MDD subset received randomly assigned treatment with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or supportive counseling (SC). Depression severity was measured with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); infant developmental outcomes were measured with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) and its Behavior Rating Scale (BRS). Infants of women with MDD had lower BRS scores (p?=?.02). Reduction in depression scores was associated with better infant outcomes on the BSID and BRS (p values <.03). These preliminary findings suggest depression occurring in pregnant women with diabetes is associated with poorer infant development and improvement in prepartum depression is associated with improvement in measures of infant development.     

Child Delinquents: Examining the Market for Criminal Futures

This article investigates child delinquency (offenders younger than 13 years of age). The population of child delinquents under various dispositions in the state of Louisiana, at one point in time, is described. Eighty youth are examined using the following characteristics: Race, Gender, Age, Offense Type (violent, nonviolent) Crime Category (felony, status offense, misdemeanor, and felony or misdemeanor) and Disposition (supervision, secure custody, and non-secure custody). Child delinquency is an important topic because the younger the age of first offense the greater the probability of a delinquent and criminal career. Findings reveal very few youth in secure custody and black males account for over half of the population of child delinquents. Over 75% of the population was 12 years of age.     

Outness and Identity in Context: Negotiating Sexual Disclosure in LGBT Campaigns

With Tammy Baldwin’s historic election to the US Senate, the future of LGBT politics appears increasingly optimistic; however, despite electoral progress, feminist and political science research on LGBT campaigns retains antiquated conceptions of outness. My article studies the impact of identity and outness on LGBT campaigns from a non-binary, multi-dimensional perspective. Beyond mere sexual disclosure itself, I find that where, when, and how a candidate reveals her/his sexual orientation bears predominant impact on LGBT campaigns. Through a holistic framework, I present innovative questions and perspective for researchers studying the effects of LGBT identity and outness in US electoral politics.     

Substance Use Research with Indigenous Communities: Exploring and Extending Foundational Principles of Community Psychology

Many Indigenous communities are concerned with substance use (SU) problems and eager to advance effective solutions for their prevention and treatment. Yet these communities also are concerned about the perpetuation of colonizing, disorder‐focused, stigmatizing approaches to mental health, and social narratives related to SU problems. Foundational principles of community psychology—ecological perspectives, empowerment, sociocultural competence, community inclusion and partnership, and reflective practice—provide useful frameworks for informing ethical community‐based research pertaining to SU problems conducted with and by Indigenous communities. These principles are explored and extended for Indigenous community contexts through themes generated from seven collaborative studies focused on understanding, preventing, and treating SU problems. These studies are generated from research teams working with Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada—inclusive of urban, rural, and reservation/reserve populations as well as adult and youth participants. Shared themes indicate that Indigenous SU research reflects community psychology principles, as an outgrowth of research agendas and processes that are increasingly guided by Indigenous communities. At the same time, this research challenges these principles in important ways pertaining to Indigenous–settler relations and Indigenous‐specific considerations. We discuss these challenges and recommend greater synergy between community psychology and Indigenous research.     

Is defensiveness associated with cognitive bias away from emotional information?

The role of defensiveness and repressive coping style for the performance on a combined emotional Stroop and tachistoscopic identification task with masked and unmasked words was studied in a community sample. Defensiveness was associated with a decrease in Stroop interference for masked threat words, but not for unmasked threat words. The most robust results, however, were found with regard to overall test performance (independent of emotional valence). On the emotional Stroop task, high-defensive men (but not women) were faster to colour-name words in general, irrespective of emotional valence. On the tachistoscopic identification task, high-defensive women identified fewer words in general than low-defensive participants. The results are discussed in terms of defensiveness being associated with (a) avoidance of emotional information at an automatic, pre-attentive level, and (b) a general avoidance of potentially emotional information that takes different form in men and women depending on possible differences in what is seen as socially desirable for the two genders.